Author Profile

  • Isobel Gorman
  • Url: http://thesecondskin.wordpress.com
  • Posts: 7
  • About the user: Isobel Gorman is currently studying for an MA in New Media at the University of Amsterdam. She also studied at the National College of Art & Design (NCAD) in Dublin, Ireland where she graduated with a BA in Visual Communications and History of Art and Design in 2001. She received a First Class Honours for her graduating thesis ‘Second Skins’ which dealt with the rising phenomena of Multi-player online gaming. An extract of this thesis was published in the NCAD anthology ‘Thought Lines 6‘. Upon graduation, Isobel worked as a graphic designer and gallery guide until 2003 when she left Ireland and moved to Shanghai, China. In China she worked as an educator, designer, copywriter and marketing localization consultant. Isobel returned to Dublin and set up her own design studio in the summer of 2007. She moved to Amsterdam in August 2010 to take up postgraduate studies in new media theory.

Author Archive

A Tale of Two Books: Digital Versus Print

Isobel Gorman | 19 October 2010, 1:38 am | 1 comment | tags: , ,

Imagine the scene, it’s Christmas, little Billy rushes downstairs and throws himself on the presents under the tree. He reaches out and snatches up what he thinks is the new Larry Botter book and rips off the paper in a frenzy … but what’s this! It’s a *bleep* eReader, not Larry Botter and the Snark of Wisdom! All hell breaks loose, he wanted the limited edition by May. K. Howling, now how’s that supposed to happen with an eReader!

Wikipedia, we have a Google refresh problem!

Isobel Gorman | 16 October 2010, 8:42 pm | 7 comments | tags: , , , ,

What did the web crawler say to Wikipedia? I’ll update you later!

So the question is … just how much later?! I’m wondering because there seems to be a discrepancy between just how fast Wikipedia bots/editors seem to shoot down vandals and how fast Google actually refreshes information to reflect this correction in the search engine. Today I was doing some research on new game technology and in particular, on a famous game developer who is showcasing it. I typed in my request in Google search engine and up pops a link to the developer’s Wikipedia page. Except it wasn’t quite how I’d imagined the page information to appear in a search engine.

What’s got the Greater Manchester Police all aTwitter today?

Isobel Gorman | 14 October 2010, 11:55 pm | tags: , , , , ,

Discard your police scanner, since 5am this morning and for 24 hours only, the Greater Manchester Police have been logging every incident live on Twitter. What’s got them all atwitter? According to their website they want to raise the public’s awareness of ‘the complexities of modern policing, which often aren’t fully appreciated.’ By publishing events real-time as they unfold they hope to give the general public insight into how social issues are increasingly taking up a large proportion of their duties and draining public funds.

Ah Dr. Blofeld, I’ve been expecting you!

Isobel Gorman | 02 October 2010, 10:52 pm | 1 comment | tags: , ,

When I wrote my article in Wikipedia about Suzhou Creek Art District in Shanghai, I really hadn’t expected to encounter Dr. Blofeld coming out of hiding from his Himalayan retreat to edit my category listing! Au contraire, I had expected perhaps a bot or two … but Dr. Blofeld and his odd-eyed furry feline, well that’s original!

Virtually Yours! The Meteoric Rise of Virtual Game Goods

Isobel Gorman | 27 September 2010, 3:19 am | 1 comment | tags: , , , , , , , ,

In the space of just over a decade, virtual game goods have gone from being a black market cottage industry to an extremely successful business model for gaming and social networking virtual goods industries. This evolution, caused by player driven demand for virtual goods lead to social media and game industries implementing virtual currency systems and sale of virtual goods as one of the main focuses of their business model.

Book Review: “Engineering Play – A Cultural History of Children’s Software” – By Mizuko Ito

Isobel Gorman | 19 September 2010, 12:51 am | tags: , , , , , ,

Ito weaves a compelling tale of the dynamic and rapidly changing face of the children’s software industry from the pioneering days of the early 1980s to the late 1990s when she completed her case studies.

I Fly with my Little Spy! New Stealth Techno-Toys.

Isobel Gorman | 12 September 2010, 6:53 pm | tags: , , , ,

The recent debate about the proposed use of military-style surveillance drones in the United Kingdom, and further afield, has fuelled fears and given rise to concern over the continual erosion of the individual’s right to privacy and safety. The very name ‘drone’ seems to evoke a particularly menacing connotation, especially given the current use of drones in conflict. So when the French company Parrot launched their new augmented reality (AR) gaming device called AR.Drone the immediate association was surveillance related.